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Local Guitarist Vincent Sims asks the question "Is That Jazz?"

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Deadhead Ed Greene, host of the “Freak Show” on WMNF has this to say about Uncertainty Principle: "I just gotta tell you this has got to be one of the finest CDs I have ever heard in my life. I can’t take it out of my car’s player yet and it's been in there for a week now. I must admit that the music takes me on my journeys to wherever that may be (physically and mentally) and It flows so well and seamlessly from the very beginning to the very end.” Order your copy now for $15 shipped to your door.

Anything is fair game, from jazz to funk to fusion to world-music grooves to psychedelia to the avant garde, in the music of Ghetto Love Sugar, called “Tampa’s jazz/funk odyssey” by Weekly Planet writer Eric Snider.

Ghetto Love Sugar has recently gained acclaim for the band’s debut (live-in-the) studio disc, “The Uncertainty Principle” (Groovewell Records), a collaboration with trumpeter Jonathan Powell and saxophonist Jeremy Powell. The CD was called “a spacey, dreamy collection of fusion and free jazz” by the All Music Guide, whose critic went on to call the music “incredible to wrap your mind around and really explore. ‘Uncertainty Principle’ is a worthwhile investment that creates a pleasant sonic bubble that doesn’t pop easily.”

More praise: “Deadhead” Ed Greene, host of “The Freak Show” on Tampa’s WMNF, 88.5 FM, called the album “one of the finest CDs I have ever heard in my life. The music takes me on my journeys to wherever that may be (emotionally and mentally) and it flows so well and seamlessly from the very beginning to the very end.”

The band additionally has received plenty of attention and airplay for a cover of the Beatles’ “Within You, Without You,” included on WMNF’s “A Little Help From Our Friends” CD, a tribute to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Ghetto Love Sugar played on the radio station’s multi-band Beatles bash at Skipper’s Smokehouse.

Ghetto Love Sugar, approaching its first-year anniversary, eschews traditional compositions and song structures in favor of creating music in the moment. That concept has taken hold since July 2001 at King Corona Cigars in Ybor City, where the intimate setting has allowed for a sort of musical laboratory project.

GLS’s creativity is largely fueled by the inspiration received from very supportive listeners. “Tampa’s own groove scientists avail themselves of elements of jazz, funk, world-beat and psychedelia in order to reinvent classic fodder and concoct organic new jams – right before your very eyes,” according to Weekly Planet music columnist Scott Harrell

Ghetto Love Sugar also has played Jannus Landing in St. Petersburg, opening for the Neville Brothers; at Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa, on the multi-band Elvis Costello tribute and Holiday Schmoliday shows for WMNF, and opening for Afro-Cuban percussion great Gumbi Ortiz; and has headlined shows at the Orpheum in Ybor City, Yeoman’s Road Pub on Davis Islands and the Martini Club in Dunedin. The group additionally has shared the bill at the Orpheum with New Jersey jam band RANA, and played the same venue in collaboration with New York musicians Jonathan Powell (trumpet) and Jeremy Powell (saxophone).

“Peace Prayer,” the unofficial Ghetto Love Sugar debut CD, recorded live at Skipper’s Smokehouse on Sept. 14, 2001 with Indian tabla master Shantilal Shah, was released late last year. Gina Vivinetto, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, called the CD “perfect for late-night car rides of contemplation.”

GLS features musicians associated with a variety of Tampa Bay area groups: acoustic and electric bassist Philip Booth (Greenwich Blue, The Irritable Tribe of Poets, Jonathan Powell Quartet, Bop City, Liz Back on Booze, Endangered Species Big Band), drummer Jonathan Priest (Rocksteady@8, The Irritable Tribe of Poets, Tibetan Sound Orgy, Jonathan Powell Quartet, Stinky Jones, P.W. Fenton and the Second Ward), Fender Rhodes/Hammond organ/efx wizard Raulton Reichel (Funk Like Whoa, Funky Plumbers, Jonathan Powell Quartet), and Joel Lisi, the guitarist from acclaimed funk-fusion power trio Beanstalk.

For more information: gls@groovewell.com